Cloudflare launches Observatory and Smart Shield for website performance

Cloudflare announced the launch of Observatory and Smart Shield on September 26, 2025, introducing a monitoring platform that combines performance diagnostics with automated remediation capabilities. The company released both products in open beta, making them available across all subscription tiers including free accounts.

Observatory integrates multiple data sources into a unified platform, according to Tim Kadlec, Brian Batraski, and Noah Maxwell Kennedy from Cloudflare. The platform consolidates real-user monitoring data, synthetic testing results, error rates, and backend telemetry that previously required separate tools. This integration addresses a fundamental challenge for teams responsible for website performance: understanding metrics matters less than knowing how to fix problems.

"Modern users expect instant, reliable web experiences," the announcement states. Research cited in the document shows delays as small as 100 milliseconds measurably impact revenue, conversions, bounce rates, and engagement metrics. These performance thresholds have become critical for businesses as website speed directly influences user behavior and business outcomes.

The announcement builds on Cloudflare's position handling traffic for over 20% of the web, providing the company access to extensive performance data across different configurations and use cases. Observatory leverages this vantage point to deliver insights based on billions of real-world interactions rather than theoretical benchmarks.

Real-user monitoring forms the foundation of Observatory's data collection approach. The platform emphasizes Core Web Vitals metrics, which represent standardized measurements for user experience quality. Cloudflare provides this monitoring capability free for all accounts, including automated deployment for free zones outside the European Union and United Kingdom.

"We believe so strongly in the importance of every company having access to accurate, detailed RUM data that we are providing it for free, to all accounts," according to the announcement. The company positions real-user data as the authoritative source for measuring performance, arguing that synthetic tests inevitably provide approximations regardless of sophistication.

The platform breaks down Time to First Byte into component parts, addressing what the announcement characterizes as an "ill-defined blackbox." Analysis across 9 billion events revealed strong correlations between TTFB and Largest Contentful Paint performance. Sites with TTFB exceeding 1,800 milliseconds showed 70.1 percentage points less likelihood of achieving good LCP scores compared to average sites.

Google's thresholds classify TTFB performance as good when 800 milliseconds or less, needs improvement between 800 and 1,800 milliseconds, and poor above 1,800 milliseconds. Similar classifications apply to Largest Contentful Paint: good at 2,500 milliseconds or less, needs improvement between 2,500 and 4,000 milliseconds, and poor beyond 4,000 milliseconds.

Observatory exposes the complete request lifecycle by decomposing backend metrics into connection establishment time, server response duration, network latency, and related components. This granular breakdown enables teams to identify specific bottlenecks rather than confronting aggregate metrics that obscure root causes.

Cache hit ratios and error rates receive prominent display within Observatory's interface, complementing backend telemetry with operational metrics. Analysis of 9 billion data points showed 91.7% of pages served from Cloudflare's cache achieved good TTFB classification, compared to 79.7% when requests required origin server processing. This 12 percentage point difference quantifies the performance benefit of edge caching.

The platform includes synthetic testing capabilities through two distinct methodologies. Browser tests load requested pages in headless browsers, executing Google's Lighthouse tool to report performance metrics and generate improvement suggestions. Network tests represent a new addition to Cloudflare's testing arsenal, focusing specifically on backend performance characteristics.

Each network test executes multiple runs against specified endpoints over short time periods. The system records wait time, server response time, connection time, SSL negotiation time, and total load time for each response. Results appear as histograms rather than single values, displaying the distribution of measurements to represent variability inherent in real-world conditions.

Observatory enables comparison between network tests by selecting two completed test runs. The histogram presentation allows visual assessment of performance differences across the full range of recorded values rather than comparing single representative measurements.

Cloudflare plans to open-source many testing agents powering Observatory during the fourth quarter of 2025. This commitment addresses accuracy concerns and enables community scrutiny of measurement methodologies. "The best way to have the highest level of confidence in the measurement tools and frameworks we're using is the rigor and scrutiny that open-source provides," according to the announcement.

Smart Suggestions constitute Observatory's actionable recommendation engine. The system analyzes real-user data to identify performance patterns and map them to specific remediation actions. When Resource Load Delay accounts for over 10% of total LCP time, for example, Observatory recommends enabling compression through Polish to reduce file sizes.

The recommendation engine decomposes Largest Contentful Paint into four components: Time to First Byte measuring server response speed, Resource Load Delay tracking browser discovery time for LCP resources, Resource Load Duration capturing download time, and Render Delay measuring browser rendering time after resource availability. This breakdown enables precise diagnosis compared to treating LCP as a monolithic metric.

Smart Shield addresses origin protection challenges that Observatory identifies through monitoring. The product combines dynamic traffic acceleration, intelligent caching, health monitoring, and dedicated egress IP addresses into a unified interface. Configuration previously requiring navigation across multiple APIs and dashboard settings now operates through streamlined controls.

"Today's customers have powerful tools to protect their origins, but achieving basic use cases remains frustratingly complex," the announcement states. Smart Shield simplifies configuration for common requirements including application acceleration, origin load reduction, health issue identification, and IP address access restriction.

The integration between Observatory and Smart Shield creates a feedback loop. Observatory identifies performance bottlenecks and stability issues. Smart Shield provides capabilities to address identified problems. Real-time analytics verify whether implemented changes deliver expected improvements.

Cloudflare implemented dynamic connection pooling to improve origin server performance. The system automatically adjusts the number of machines serving traffic for specific customers based on domain-level traffic volume within data centers. This replaces previous static pool sizing that created inefficiencies.

The implementation reduced origin connections by over 30% across Cloudflare's network. This translates to approximately 402 years of handshake time saved daily, or 12,060 years monthly. Some data centers experienced connection reductions exceeding 60%, particularly those handling substantial API traffic.

Connection reduction directly impacts origin server availability and egress costs. Fewer connections mean reduced compute requirements for TCP and SSL handshake processing, freeing resources for serving actual content requests. The announcement characterizes this as reducing the internet's "hidden tax" on performance.

Observatory's development responds to increasing complexity in website performance monitoring, where marketing teams require comprehensive visibility into how infrastructure decisions affect user experience. Performance monitoring has evolved from simple uptime checks to sophisticated analysis incorporating multiple data streams and user experience metrics.

The platform addresses challenges marketing professionals face when technical performance issues impact campaign effectiveness. Website speed directly influences conversion rates and engagement metrics that determine marketing ROI. Observatory provides marketing teams visibility into performance factors affecting their campaigns without requiring deep technical expertise.

Smart Shield's one-click fixes reduce time required for marketing teams to address performance issues impacting campaigns. This matters particularly when infrastructure changes need coordination across multiple teams and systems, creating delays between problem identification and resolution.

Cloudflare outlined plans to expand Observatory during the fourth quarter of 2025. Planned enhancements include deeper diagnostic data breaking down request and page lifecycles, expanded Smart Suggestions covering wider problem ranges, and benchmarking capabilities for comparing performance across different content delivery networks.

The benchmarking functionality specifically addresses customers splitting traffic between multiple CDNs for regulatory or compliance reasons. While basic comparison exists in the current release, planned improvements will streamline cross-platform performance analysis.

Smart Shield development continues into 2026 with planned addition of self-serve dedicated CDN egress IP addresses. The product roadmap includes performance, reliability, and resilience improvements addressing origin protection requirements.

The announcement positions both products as initial releases requiring customer feedback for refinement. Cloudflare opened feedback channels for suggestions on improving Observatory and Smart Shield functionality.

Timeline

• April 2021: Google launches Page Experience report in Search Console consolidating Core Web Vitals and other user experience metrics
• September 25, 2024: Cloudflare announces Speed Brain technology reducing page load times up to 75% through predictive prefetching
• September 7, 2024: Cloudflare unveils dashboard for monitoring TCP connection anomalies on Radar platform
• October 9, 2024: Google unveils First-party Mode Beta for Tag Manager with Cloudflare integration
• November 2024: Google removes Page Experience Report from Search Console while maintaining Core Web Vitals monitoring
• December 10, 2024: Cloudflare introduces Robotcop for network-level robots.txt enforcement against AI crawlers
• December 30, 2024: Cloudflare releases h3i open source tool for HTTP/3 protocol testing
• March 4, 2025: Google confirms service worker implementation in Google Tag improving measurement reliability
• June 8, 2025: Google strengthens consent monitoring tools with diagnostic integration in Analytics
• June 30, 2025: Google adds Tag Diagnostics to Analytics consent settings hub
• August 21, 2025: Google clarifies lazy loading SEO impact explaining connection to Core Web Vitals measurements
• September 26, 2025: Cloudflare launches Observatory and Smart Shield in open beta across all subscription tiers
• Q4 2025: Cloudflare plans to open-source Observatory testing agents and expand Smart Suggestions capabilities
• Early 2026: Smart Shield updates planned including self-serve dedicated CDN egress IP addresses

Summary

Who: Cloudflare announced the launch through Tim Kadlec, Brian Batraski, and Noah Maxwell Kennedy. The products target website operators, developers, and businesses responsible for delivering web experiences across all subscription tiers including free accounts.

What: Observatory provides a unified monitoring platform integrating real-user data, synthetic testing, backend telemetry, error rates, and cache ratios. Smart Shield offers automated origin protection combining traffic acceleration, caching, health monitoring, and IP address management with one-click configuration. The products work together creating a feedback loop where Observatory identifies issues and Smart Shield provides solutions.

When: Cloudflare announced both products on September 26, 2025, launching them in open beta immediately. The company plans to open-source testing agents in Q4 2025 and release Smart Shield enhancements in early 2026.

Where: The products operate across Cloudflare's global network handling over 20% of web traffic. Observatory and Smart Shield work through Cloudflare's dashboard interface, available to customers worldwide across all subscription tiers including free accounts. Analysis draws from 9 billion events collected through Cloudflare's infrastructure.

Why: The launch addresses complexity in monitoring and fixing website performance issues. Teams previously required multiple tools to understand application health and separate processes to implement fixes. Small delays of 100 milliseconds measurably impact revenue and conversions. Observatory consolidates scattered data into comprehensive views while Smart Shield enables rapid remediation. The integration matters for marketing professionals because performance directly affects campaign effectiveness, conversion rates, and user engagement metrics determining ROI.